Muscle as Sign: Terrain

Muscle as Sign: Terrain examines how muscle moves from bodily form into a visual sign, and how that sign shapes ideas of masculinity. Drawing on Roland Barthes’ Mythologies, the work considers how cultural values can come to appear natural.

I photograph shoulders and torsos at close range, using black and white to reduce the body to light, shadow, texture and weight. Tight framing removes the face and other markers of identity. The images may first resemble hills, ridges or geological surfaces rather than a male body, interrupting the familiar reading of muscle as proof of masculine identity.

Mountains suggest solidity, height, endurance and conquest. These associations overlap with familiar expectations of masculinity, yet the body can appear monumental in one moment and exposed in the next: apparently solid, but also soft, vulnerable and temporary.

By turning the body into terrain, the work makes the cultural values surrounding masculinity easier to notice and asks how repeated images teach us what strength should look like.